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The Bush Sex Ed Doctrine

Even in its final months, the Bush administration is working hard to deny women around the world access to contraception

by

Sarah Wildman

With domestic and global
attention turned to the financial crisis and the last four weeks of the
race for the White House, the Bush administration is taking the
opportunity to quietly check off some nefarious boxes in its efforts to
spread the American culture wars beyond our shores.

"In
light of the restrictions on USAID assistance and MSI's work as the
major implementing partner of [the UN Population Fund]'s programme in
China, which supports China's family planning programme, USAID has
concluded that it is not appropriate for MSI to receive USAID funded
contraceptives and/or condoms from host country governments," Hill
wrote, even though MSI doesn't itself receive any USAID funding itself.

The
reason? The Kemp-Kasten Amendment, a lesser-known restriction on global
population control organisations that purports to thwart groups that
engage in coercive abortion or forced sterilisation. Sounds like a
no-brainer - after all, who supports coercive abortion? But the
application of Kemp-Kasten, which was enacted in 1985, has been wielded
by Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan as a legislative
sledgehammer that fits hand-in-glove with the so-called global gag rule that restricts any family planning organisation that even mentions abortion. Since 2002, the Bush administration has cited Kemp-Kasten in its annual decision to withhold our $39.7m in yearly dues from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

The
impact? In his letter USAID's Hill went on to say that countries
working with MSI had been instructed, effective immediately, to no
longer work with MSI. At least six African countries will lose MSI's
distribution of crucial USAID-supplied contraceptives and condoms in
rural and remote areas and urban slums. The nations affected include
Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, countries
for whom MSI currently covers some 25% of contraceptive distribution.

For
the Bush administration, which touts its HIV/Aids strategy in Africa as
one of its major success stories, cracking down on condom distribution
in Africa seems a far cry from implementing comprehensive
disease-control efforts. Not to mention the fact that American
politicians in general - even Sarah Palin - claim that reducing the
number of abortions is a worthy and admirable goal. And yet by
undermining the effort to distribute the means to prevent pregnancy and
disease, USAID has slashed both such efforts.

MSI's
family planning services prevented 5-7 million unwanted pregnancies in
2007 alone, thus preventing 1-1.5 million abortions. Most of these
abortions would have been unsafe, putting women's lives at risk. "For
every two intra-uterine devices (IUDs) the US government denies MSI, an
unsafe abortion could result unless MSI is able to find alternative
supplies," MSI president Dana Hovig explained.

It's
no secret that China's family planning programme is deemed coercive.
Fears of forced sterilisations have existed for years. But MSI and
UNFPA have long argued that their work in no way supports forced
sterilisation or coerced abortions - a point verified by independent
observers. Instead they give women safe means for controlling their own
bodies.

Craig Larsen, a senior policy analyst at Population Action International,
explained to me that organisations like Marie Stopes had feared a
crackdown as far back as June. A few sentences issued by USAID
indicated the organisation was beginning to look into expanding the
reach of the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, though no one knew exactly where
USAID was taking that veiled threat.

The hypocrisy of the
Bush administration knows no bounds. This is a policy that will not
have an impact on China at all. Indeed, for impact on China, perhaps
President Bush might have considered not attending the Beijing Olympics
and lustily partaking in the celebration of Chinese culture. In a
letter to Condoleezza Rice protesting the recent restraints placed on
MSI, Nita Lowey, a New York congresswoman, pointed out that the US
government itself, in a 2001 assessment of the UNFPA, also rejected the
case for UN programmes supporting any kind of unsavoury Chinese
policies.

As I wrote
back in July, the World Bank estimates that 51 million unintended
pregnancies take place globally every year, 68,000 women die from
botched or unsafe abortions each year and 5.1 million are left
permanently disabled by them. The World Bank drew a direct link between
giving women access to contraception and family planning and boosting
economic growth and ending endemic poverty and maternal and infant
death.

But the Bush administration is more interested in
expanding our ugly culture wars than helping women internationally.
With this move, USAID has put in place a stumbling block even for an
incoming Obama administration. Whereas the global gag rule has become a
must-undo for Democrats upon entering office (Bill Clinton repealed the
original gag rule the moment he walked into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in
1993, and Obama would likely do the same) and likewise reinstated by
Republicans (Bush II immediately signed the gag rule back into effect
in 2001), Kemp-Kasten must be reviewed by state department lawyers and
legislators to be reassessed.

All of which means that, though
Obama would surely put in motion the wheels to roll back such obvious
political measures, it will take months, not days, even with a
Democratic administration, to reinstate Marie Stopes's efforts to
distribute IUDs and condoms in Africa. That means months of no
distribution, months of women used as pawns in a Republican game that
ruins or ends lives halfway around the world as a means of placating
their supporters here at home.

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Further

Last week, the "world's most moral army" bombed and leveled Gaza's much-loved al-Meshal Theater and Cultural Center, rare home to hundreds of artists, dancers and writers and vital symbol of Palestinian identity, to "make residents feel the price of escalation." The next day, the Palestinian band al-Anqaa (or Phoenix) returned in defiance to play for their beleaguered neighbors, because "art is, too, a form of resistance."

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